'Bone putty' holds it together

(Credit: DARPA)

An all star research team is developing a putty-like material to help regenerate shattered bones, a technology that could allow soldiers to avoid amputation and quickly regain full use of badly broken legs.

'Fracture putty' is a biocompatible compound designed to be packed in and around non-union fractures. It provides a load-bearing, osteoconductive, bone-like structure to give regenerative growth a chance. Then, once the bone heals, the putty degrades into harmless, absorbable by-products.

"The fracture putty will serve as a bioactive scaffold and will be able to substitute for the damaged bone," said principal researcher Mauro Ferrari. "At the same time, the putty will facilitate the formation of natural bone and self-healing in the surrounding soft tissue through the attraction of the patient's own stem cells. The putty will have the texture of modeling clay so that it can be molded in any shape in order to be used in many different surgical applications, including the reconnection of separated bones and the replacement of missing bones."

Traumatic, compound bone fractures are very difficult to treat on the battlefield, often requiring multiple surgeries with bone screws, plates, and rods to cobble together grafts with healthy bone. They also take a long time to heal. Bone putty could have the patient up and around in as little as a week, according to the researchers.

The program, which has been called "the ultimate convergence of materials science, mechanics, and orthopedics," will first be tested on animals, but could eventually lead to the use of 'bone putty' in emergency rooms to treat civilians injured in traffic accidents and other traumatic events, researchers hope.

The two-year research project is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and includes the University of Texas Health Science Center and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Harvard University, the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern University among others.

[SlimGem]

Sounds like an amazing invention and I hope they succeed.
Unfortunately, "... will first be tested on animals ..." seems to put a bit of a damper on it.
Who the heck would want the job of intentionally maiming animals? What do they do, smash the creatures legs with a hammer? But, I guess researchers have been doing things like this for a long time.

[monkeyfun14]

Not saying that they will do this but they may test it on animals that have broken their legs by themselves thousands are taken to the vets daily for that reason.

[hiledd]

Unfortunately, you absolutely have to test in animals first. There is no other reliable way to test devices.

[RKRKAR]

Maybe you could volunteer for the testing, as you assume that someone intentionally injures animals just for the testing? Are you with PITA?

[-Roddly]

I think it is quite naive to assume they don't intentionally injures animals just for the testing. Maybe you should do some research on animal testing because they do far worse things than just breaking bones. Ever heard of vivisection?

[YaraME]

Fantastic evolution of medicine. It must also have a positive factor regarding bone length, i,e, Fractured femur leading to shortening of leg which in turn leads to improper balance and spine stress.

[ThisHoldsMyAttention]

It is amazing what science is brewing up. I recently wrote a blog post that included how scientists are 'printing' bone 'scaffolds' on a 3-D printer and then seeding these with stem cells to grow new bones. I'm not a big fan of the whole stem cell thing, but the innovation is amazing.
See what I wrote: http://www.thisholdsmyattention.com/?p=164

Adam
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ThisHoldsMyAttention.com

[MattEnloe]

This is brilliant. I can't wait to see it applied in combat AND everyday situations.
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Summaxr.com

[morton101]

stem cells are the furture. they can grow a new u

[Dr_Zinj]

Nobody in their right minds "wants" to maim these test animals. However, you need to have a large number of consistent, systematic, controlled breaks and shatters to build a statistically valid scientific study to show that the material is truely safe and effective. You could trial the material on veterinary animals, but control of activity, diet, animal size, age, overall health of the animal, etc. introduces too many variables to get this material evaluated and approved for human use within your lifetime.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Medical sciences advance quite amazingly. This is a neat idea that would have been pure fantasy or sci-fi material just a few years ago.

I wonder if JB Weld has a patent on it yet. :)

[Seaspray0]

It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "bone-like structure". Disclaimer: Improperly applied, It could give you an errection lasting more than 4 hours.

[mchlebus]

Wow! This is really cool. I hope it is as promising as it sounds. As for the animals, I'll break 100 dog legs with a hammer if it saves one human life.